The Big Bang Job
Season finale, Part 1. Nate and his team try to hunt down longtime nemesis Damien Moreau before he kills a highly skilled engineer and sells her work to global terrorists. The Client Yasmin, a Department of Defense engineer working on an advanced battery for military applications. She finds herself working on a project overseen by General Atherton when her research grant is folded into a larger one. The Mark Damien Moreau. To get to Moreau, the team must target General Elias Atherton. The Con The team discovers that Moreau is in D.C and will be holding an auction. They conclude that the sale involves Yasmine's research and decide to send Hardison and Eliot to obtain invites to the auction while Nate, Sophie, and Parker start their con on General Atherton. Sophie plays a nosy congresswoman focused on examining Atherton's research projects, Parker plays her assistant, and Nate is a government official who claims to want to protect Atherton from Sophie's investigation. While Atherton leads Sophie on a tour of the facility, Parker and Nate download the files for Atherton's most recent project, the battery on which Yasmine had been working. Meanwhile, Eliot surprises Hardison by offering his real name to Moreau's security team. Once Moreau himself meets with Eliot and Hardison, it becomes clear that he and Eliot have worked closely together in the past. Moreau, who does not do business with strangers, is reluctant to speak with Hardison and orders him handcuffed to a chair. During the course of his conversation with Eliot, Moreau kicks the chair, with Hardison still chained to the arm, into the swimming pool. Eliot makes no attempt to save him and merely continues to reason with Moreau. Moreau, satisfied that Hardison is legit, throws the cuff keys into the water so that Hardison may free himself. The Italian is seen dressed as one of Moreau's bathing beauties. When the team gathers after their separate missions, the other team members demand to know why Eliot hasn't told them of his involvement with Moreau. Eliot tersely replies that he hoped he wouldn't have to as he committed a horrible act while working for Moreau and does not want to tell them about it, even now. Eliot then reveals that Moreau wants him to kill Atherton. Hardison, studying the specs for Yasmine's battery, concludes that it has been turned into a powerful bomb, an EMP bomb that could take out the electricity for an entire city. Working in tandem with one of Moreau's mercenaries, Eliot isolates Atherton and snaps his neck. At the Medical Examiner's office, Nate and Hardison free Atherton, who is very much alive, from his body bag and, with a little help from a corpse and from Sophie, playing the grieving widow, perpetuate the illusion that Atherton is dead. Eliot and Nate arrive at Moreau's designated meeting spot and find the Italian bruised, gagged, unconscious, and tied to a chair. She claims to have been betrayed by an unknown mole in her own organization. Meanwhile, at the research facility, Hardison and Parker attempt to retrieve the bomb but find that it's missing. After telling this to Nate, Nate tells them to look for a "secure vehicle" heading towards the water. Nate, the Italian, and Eliot are trapped in the warehouse. Eliot grimly takes up a fallen mercenary's gun and, after an intense battle, frees first Nate and the Italian, then himself. Parker and Hardison conclude that the bomb is on a train. They board the train from an overhead bridge and set the bomb to self destruct in the least destructive manner possible for the device. Jumping in Sophie's waiting car, Parker declares that she is in the mood for pretzels, and the three flee the scene. Nate and the Italian confront Moreau as he attempts to board his private plane. Nate tells him that he's delivered proof of Moreau's crimes to the authorities and informs him that the bomb has been destroyed. Moreau shoots the Italian in the shoulder and boards his plane just as Eliot arrives. Moreau's plane departs. Before medics load her into an ambulance, the Italian tells Nate that he is a free man. To which, Nate replies, that the job is not done. She insists that it is, as Moreau is now back in a country that he virtually controls. Nate considers this and seems determined. Aliases * Nate Ford - Lionel Whitney * Sophie Devereaux - Representative Henkle Memorable Quotes "Lets go steal the Department of Defense" - Nathan "Isn't that treason" - Parker "We'll give it back" - Nathan Episode Notes * This is not the first time cast member Aldis Hodge and guest star Goran Visnjic have worked together. Hodge guest starred in a fall, 2003 episode of ER, in a storyline featuring Visnjic as Dr. Luka Kovač. In story, Kovač, volunteering for an aid organization in Africa, is taken hostage and threatened with execution by a small group of rebels led by Hodge's unnamed character. Both actors' dialogue was entirely in French, and may be the reason Hardison had a French accent during his meeting with Moreau. * The episode includes several allusions to James Bond films, including Moreau's girl in a gold bikini and his gun. * Firearms are handled with extreme care during television filming, and Goran Visnjic is an expert marksman. Despite this, accidents happen, as did when Moreau shoots The Italian in the shoulder. According to the DVD commentary for the episode, the shell casing ejected into Tim Hutton's right eye. Hutton was not badly injured, and was able to continue filming after he was checked by set medical personnel. * CERN is the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, or European Council for Nuclear Research. Founded in 1954, CERN is a collaborative European research body, exploring physics at the particle (nuclear) level. Located in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN undertakes no research for military purposes. Currently, 20 European countries are members of CERN. CERN recently constructed and began to operate the Large Hadron Collider outside of Geneva. Major Events *Eliot reveals that he once worked for Moreau. Trivia * This is the first episode in which Eliot is shown shooting a gun. Episode Media Category:Episodes Category:Season 3